Gaming: Space Combat

I’ve had an idea about building a space combat game for a while now, so here I go.

First of all, you have to choose, simply whether you have field technology or not. This is a bigger choice than you might at first think. If you have force fields, then you can have proper behemoths, real ships-of-the-line, as they have more space inside, so more power plants, so stronger force fields. If you don’t, then you have carriers at the peripheries of the fighting, which launch smaller ships.

In space, see, manoeuvrability is necessary for survival, as otherwise you are a large, slow target. Just like how now modern naval battles are decided by aircraft, as ships are too vulnerable, it would be worse in space, as you can be attacked from all directions.

However, as fields can stop smaller weaponry, we can finally have large, 18th-century naval combat IN SPACE! Which is nice.

……

Anyway, let’s get on track, after that massively tangential background-thing and back to modelling space combat. You have a couple of things to think about here, ship-wise. Note: this is about a little homebrew strategy game here. So be prepared

Firstly, the force-fields themselves. Now, each field can take X damage before it falls. But, as there are power plants aboard the ships, they will regenerate at rate Y/turn. Y= Energy Allocated, X= Energy Allocated x 5

Secondly, weapons. We’ll call these standard railguns – using the power of electricity to fling lumps of metal across space. Damage from each turret = (Energy Allocated x 2), as the more juice you put into this thing, the faster you fire that lump of metal.

Each ship has Total Energy = (1 + Number of Power Plants) x2

Thirdly, Engines. Engines give you thrust to move in any direction that the engine faces. i.e. – if you have no front-pointing engines, you can’t move backwards. You can move (Engines facing that way x Energy Allocated) per turn.

Now for the Ships themselves. They are made of up to 12 cubes (it’s easier this way) and can be put together in any way you choose, as long as they connect. Each cube can be a power plant, engine or crew bay. Engine “point” of out one face only. Turrets are added onto faces. Each turret can fire at anything in a semisphere centres on itself, as long as it has line of sight.

You would, however, have to allocate your Energy before the game start, but you can “shift” a maximum of (1 + Power plant) energy a turn, by switching around the flux capacitors, or something.

Gameplay-wise: Turnbased – everyone moves in order, then shoots in the same order. Each ship has 20 HP per cube, and once they are gone, it’s game over. Also, a viable strategy is to split up your “fleet” into smaller ships.

…..

Well, there you have it.

I’ll probably look over this later, and realise that it is horribly unbalanced for certain build, but it seems fine for now.